Passages

First Mother Dorothy Walker Bush, 91, died Nov. 19 in Greenwich, Conn., a day after a stroke. During son George Bush’s 1989 inauguration, he leaned over to kiss her and told the crowd that lie worshiped “the ground she walks on.”…

Actor Sterling Holloway, 87. whose distinctive gravelly voice delighted fans of animated features for generations, died Nov. 22 of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles. Holloway’s face was familiar from the ’50s sitcom The Life of Riley (as Riley’s schlumpy pal Waldo). But his most memorable roles were on sound tracks: as the stork in Dumbo, the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Kaa the singing snake in The Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh in the animated movies drawn from A.A. Milne’s children’s classics….

Dorothy Kirsten, 82, a soprano with New York City’s Metropolitan Opera for 30 years, died of complications from a stroke Nov. 18 in L.A. Admired for her Puccini heroines, she also worked the middlebrow media, co-starring in the ’40s with Frank Sinatra on radio’s Your Hit Parade and appearing in such movies as The Great Caruso wild Mario Lanza….

Songwriter Bobby Russell, 52, who penned the hits “Little Green Apples,” “Honey” and “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” died Nov. 19 of heart disease….

Actress Diane Varsi, 54, an Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress in the 1957 movie Peyton Place (playing Allison MacKenzie. the role Mia Farrow assumed in the ’60s TV series), died Nov. 19 in L.A. of respiratory problems. After leaving Hollywood, Varsi made low-budget pictures like Wild in the Streets and Killers Three….

Movie producer John Foreman, 67. died of a heart attack on Nov. 20 in L.A. A founder of the talent agency that became the Hollywood powerhouse International Creative Management, his credits include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Man Who Would Be King and Prizzi’s Honor.

Actor Griffin O’Neal, 27, son of Ryan O’Neal and brother of Tatum, pleaded no contest in L.A. on Nov. 19 to shooting at the empty car of estranged girlfriend Lynn Oddo. O’Neal was ordered to enter a one-year live-in drug-rehab program.

Stefanie Powers. 50, actress (Hart to Hart) and founder of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, a group named for her former beau and dedicated to preserving Kenya’s fauna, is engaged to French agricultural biologist Patrick de la Chenais. The appropriately exotic location for the wedding is a ranch in Kenya; the date is April 1.